Fitzrovia ( ) is a district of central London, England, near the West End. Its eastern part is in the London Borough of Camden, and the western in the City of Westminster. It has its roots in the Manor of Tottenham Court, and was urbanised in the 18th century. Its name was coined in the late 1930s by Tom Driberg.Simon W. Goulding, Fitzrovian Nights, Literary London: Interdisciplinary Studies in the Representation of London, Volume 4 Number 1 (March 2006)
It is characterised by its mixed-use of residential, business, retail, education and healthcare, with no single activity dominating.Matthew Sturgis, "All the fun of Fitzrovia", Evening Standard, 14 November 2001. Accessed 26 February 2011. The once bohemian area was home to writers such as Virginia Woolf, George Bernard Shaw and Arthur Rimbaud. In 2016, The Sunday Times named it the best place to live in London.
Geography
Fitzrovia has never been an administrative unit, so has never had formal boundaries applied, but the local streets' somewhat gridlike pattern has lent itself to informal quadrangular definitions, with Euston Road to the north, Oxford Street to the south and Great Portland Street to the west. Some take Tottenham Court Road as the eastern boundary,Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable but othersBailey, Nick, 1981 Fitzrovia. Historical Publications and Camden History Society, p. 10.Camden History Society, 1997, Streets of Bloomsbury and Fitzrovia: A survey of buildings and former residents, Camden History Society, p. 15. prefer a wider interpretation, extending to the more easterly Gower Street. By these definitions, the area overlaps the long established and once formally defined districts of Marylebone in the City of Westminster (Western Fitzrovia overlaps almost completely with the officially designated East Marylebone Conservation Area within the modern borough of Westminster), with the core area forming the south-west part of St Pancras in the London Borough of Camden. If the eastern boundary is taken to extend beyond Tottenham Court Road (i.e., to Gower Street) and to also extend south of Torrington Place, then the area overlaps the historic boundaries of Bloomsbury (including St Giles, with which it was long joined as a combined parish).
In 2014 Camden Council and Westminster City Council designated east and west areas as planning policy areas. Together these relate fairly closely to the wider interpretations described above.
Etymology
Fitzrovia is named after either Fitzroy Square or the Fitzroy Tavern,Fitzroy Tavern from pubs.com, accessed 1 December 2009. a public house on the corner of Charlotte Street and Windmill Street (both the square and the tavern are in the east of the area). The name of both features derive from the area's origin: until the end of the 19th century the area was an estate of the Dukes of Grafton, descended from Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton, a son of Charles II and Barbara Villiers who bore the royal-bastard surname "FitzRoy", Norman-French for "son of the king".)
The name "Fitzrovia" came into use in the late 1930s among an artistic, bohemian circle that that had begun using the Fitzroy Tavern and surrounding area as a cheap northerly alternative to the West End.The Fitzroy: Autobiography of a London Tavern, Fiber and Williams (Book Guild Ltd, London), 1985.Willetts, Paul 2003, Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia: the bizarre life of the writer, actor, Soho Dandy Julian Maclaren-Ross, p. 140. After a 1930 mention,Compare: an early recorded use in print occurs in the William Hickey gossip column, written by Tom Driberg MP, in the Daily Express in 1940.Goulding, Simon W., "Fitzrovian Nights", LiteraryLondon.org. Accessed 29 November 2009. The writer and dandy Julian MacLaren-Ross recalled in his Memoirs of the Forties that Meary James Thurairajah Tambimuttu, aka "Tambi", editor of Poetry London, had invented and used the name "Fitzrovia".Willetts, Paul 2003, Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia: the bizarre life of the writer, actor, Soho Dandy Julian Maclaren-Ross, p. 140. By the time Julian Maclaren-Ross met Tambimuttu in the early 1940s this literary group (which included Dylan Thomas) had moved away from the Fitzroy Tavern, which had become a victim of its own success, and were hanging out in the lesser-known Wheatsheaf and other places in Rathbone Place and Gresse Street. Maclaren-Ross recalls Tambimuttu saying: "Now we go to the Black Horse, the Burglar's Rest, the Marquess of Granby, The Wheatsheaf... in Fitzrovia." Maclaren-Ross replied: "I know the Fitzroy", to which Tambimuttu said: "Ah, that was in the Thirties, now they go to other places. Wait and see." Tambimuttu then took him on a pub crawl.Maclaren-Ross, Julian (2004), Collected Memoirs, with an introduction by Paul Willetts, Black Spring Press, p. 303. The name, largely forgotten after the avant-garde set moved out in the late 1940s, re-appeared in the 1970s, with its use having waxed and waned since.website on the history and attractions of the area https://fitzrovia.org.uk/about/fitzrovia/#nameChart of usage from 1830 to 2022
History
The core area of Fitzrovia has its roots in the ancient manor (estate) of Tottenham Court – first recorded as Þottanheale, from a charter from around AD 1000 (though the initial 'Þ', pronounced 'th', may have been a mistake by the scribe, all subsequent records using an initial 'T').Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names, Eilert Ekwall, 4th edition The manor was subsequently described as Totehele in the Domesday Book of 1086, Totenhale in 1184 and Totenhale Court by 1487. Tottenham Court formed the south-western part of the parish and later borough of St Pancras.source describes the manors which formed the parish of St Pancras https://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol5/pp324-340
The Fitzroy Tavern was named after Charles FitzRoy (later Baron Southampton), who purchased the Manor of Tottenham Court and built Fitzroy Square, to which he gave his name; nearby Fitzroy Street also bears his name. The square is the most distinguished of the original architectural features of the district, having been designed in part by Robert Adam.
Charles FitzRoy was the grandson of Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, hence Grafton Way and Grafton Mews. The name of the Grafton family's country estate is Euston Hall, in Euston, Suffolk, the origin of the names of Euston Station and Euston Road.
The south-western area was first developed by the Duke of Newcastle who established Oxford Market, now the area around Market Place. By the beginning of the 19th century, this part of London was heavily built upon.
The area became a focus of Chartist activities after the Reform Act 1832. Karl Marx attended some Chartist events, including meetings held at Charlotte Street, Tottenham Street and Rathbone Place. The area was host to a number of working men's clubs including The Communist Club at 49 Tottenham Street. University College Hospital was opened, as "North London Hospital", in 1834.University College London Hospitals NHS Trust: https://www.uclh.nhs.uk/about-us/who-we-are/our-history/1800-1899
Two of London's oldest surviving residential walkways are in Fitzrovia. Colville Place and the pre-Victorian Middleton Buildings (built 1759"History", Middleton Place.) are in the old London style of a way. When the parishes of St Pancras and Marylebone became boroughs in 1900, minor modifications were made to the ancient boundaries, whose pre-urban origin meant it cut awkwardly across the built environment in some places. The western half of Charlotte Place, the western part of part of Charlotte Street and the eastern half of Rathbone Street were transferred to Marylebone, despite these streets' long history within St Pancras and close integration with the urban grain of the St Pancras streets to the east.'Rathbone Street', in Survey of London: Volume 21, the Parish of St Pancras Part 3: Tottenham Court Road and Neighbourhood, ed. J R Howard Roberts and Walter H Godfrey (London, 1949), p. 12. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vol21/pt3/p12 [accessed 23 July 2023].
The area's most prominent feature is the BT Tower, Cleveland Street, one of London's tallest buildings. It was open to the public until an IRA bomb exploded in the revolving restaurant in 1971. Another notable modern building is the YMCA Indian Student Hostel on Fitzroy Square, one of the few surviving buildings by Ralph Tubbs.
21st century
The Middlesex Hospital, which closed in 2005, covered an extensive part of the area, and its redevelopment as Fitzroy Place was completed in 2016.
Separately, Derwent London plc acquired of property in the area to add to its existing Fitzrovia portfolio after a merger with London Merchant Securities.Derwent London Fitzrovia portfolio accessed 6 March 2010 The company then held about of property over more than 30 sites in Fitzrovia. In November 2009 the company announced plans to transform part of Fitzrovia into a new retail destination with cafes and restaurants.Thomas, Daniel, "Project banks on Fitzrovia’s bohemian appeal", Financial Times, 6 November 2009. Accessed 6 March 2010.Derwent London Fitzrovia Exhibition, accessed 6 March 2010.Your Fitzrovia, 2009, Derwent London, accessed 6 March 2010.
Derwent London created the Fitzrovia Partnership, a then-business partnership with Arup, Make Architects and City of London Corporation, with the support of the London Borough of Camden."Don't get me wrong: Simon Silver of Derwent London plc talks to Fitzrovia News", Fitzrovia News, No. 116, Spring 2010. Accessed 6 March 2010. In July 2010 Derwent London showcased plans for the redevelopment of the Saatchi & Saatchi building in Charlotte Street. Plans produced by Make Architects proposed increasing the density of the site by 50 per cent and adding shops, cafes and a small open space."Derwent London believe nothing is impossible in Fitzrovia", Fitzrovia News, No. 117, Summer 2010. Accessed 23 July 2010.
Today, over 128,000 people work within 0.5 miles of Fitzrovia, according to the Fitzrovia Partnership's 2014 Economic Report.
Georgian workhouse Objection was raised by the local community over plans announced in July 2010Rees, Linus, "Permission sought to demolish historic workhouse building and build flats", Fitzrovia News, 12 July 2007 to demolish and redevelop the site of an 18th-century building in Cleveland Street, originally a poorhouse for the parish of St Paul's, Covent Garden, and later the Cleveland Street Workhouse.Parsons, Rob, "Save Georgian workhouse from wrecking ball says Simon Callow" , Evening Standard, 4 November 2010.
Arts
Fitzrovia was a notable artistic and bohemian centre from roughly from the mid-1920s to the present day. Amongst those known to have lived locally and frequented public houses in the area such as the Fitzroy Tavern and the Wheatsheaf are Augustus John, Quentin Crisp, Dylan Thomas, Aleister Crowley, the racing tipster Prince Monolulu, Nina Hamnett and George Orwell.Stephen Inwood (2009), Historic London: An Explorer's Companion, Macmillan, p. 229. The Newman Arms on Rathbone Street, features in Orwell's novels Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936) and Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949), as well as the Michael Powell film Peeping Tom (1960).